We are a very big family starting a very small farm in the Gaspereau Valley of Nova Scotia.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Buy Nothing Month is almost up and I'm going to keep going til next weekend

as I missed the first week.

Here's my run down...

On the first week I went to a benefit for the Granny to Granny program and I bought a cup of organic fair trade coffee. The next morning I bought 10 cast iron hooks at a garage sale for our front closet. I know I am justifying my wanton purchasing, but 1.00 each for second hand cast iron hooks we've been looking for for 4 months, versus 8.00 new ones seemed an environmentally sound bargain we wouldn't see again.

My purchases the second week were second hand - I found out at the last minute that Nature Girl needed a white blouse and black skirt for the music festival. I got them at a thift store, Frenchy's. Before buying them I called around but no one had anything they could spare - her friends are in the same choir. We also put down 40.00 on a pole for our clothes line - at the enviro-depot metal scrap yard. We picked out a 20 ft pole from the scrap and they are welding on a cap and attaching two eyelets for me. Total cost will be 120 including delivery and borrowing their fence pole digger. Oh and I got each kid an apple juice popsicle at the farmer's market when we bought our organic apple juice and apple sauce for the week.

This week I bought 20 heirloom tomato seeds, and apple juice popsicles for the kids at the farmer's market.

I haven't been at a standstill this month either, I'll post pictures later, but we made a storyteller's circle for me with log stump seats, we have a huge stump that'll be my laundry hanging playform when the pole goes it. We built a workbench for me in the basement from more of those closet doors and reclaimed 2x4's, and a kids camp fort from old pallets. Plus the mini mudroom closet bench I showed earlier.

On top of that, we salvaged timbers from the garbage, started seeds for the kids with topsoil that was already here in egg trays and recycled toilet paper rolls, got 8 heritage rose bushes (Acadian roses!), some sorrel, and chives in trades with neighbours. I gave away 3 garbage bags of clothes, carpet remnants, and window blinds on the freecycle.

In the big spring clean up I'll be putting out a 30 year old mattress, and our regular garbage, maybe an extra bag of stuff I haven't been able to classify.

Then there are those things we did this weekend that you'll never be able to buy - meeting neighbours, making dandelion chains, running on the beach with no shoes and collecting rocks and shells.

3 comments:

i'm not sure how i stumbled upon your blog, mudmama, but i am so glad i did! thank you for all of your insightful posts and outlook. i've been especially interested in the buy nothing month, although my family has yet to try it. i honestly didn't know if we could do it, but recently my husband switched jobs (and paydays) so we had a buy nothing (out of necessity :)) week, and between that experience and the inspiration of your blog i think we're going to go for a whole month. de-valuing consumerism for my family is so important to me, but so hard, especially where we live (southern california, the states) and the kids are so pressured to have more, have more, have more from one another. all the better reason i think to instill the things i really want my kids to value, not the latest $100 pair of jeans or electronic gadget. i think i am going to post on the subject soon in my own blog, i would love to link to yours, would that be ok? thank you for listening to my mini-rant!